Following the Green Party’s comfortable win in the Gorton and Denton by-election this morning, much of the focus will be on the power and influence of British Muslim voters in the Greater Manchester constituency.

The seat demographics of Gorton and Denton make it one of the more ethnically and religiously segregated constituencies in the country. Voters of Pakistani Muslim origin are concentrated in areas such as Longsight, which were previously part of the abolished seat of Manchester Gorton. Meanwhile, Denton, which includes wards belonging to Tameside Council, is overwhelmingly white British.

There is no doubt that the Green Party owes much of this historic success — a majority of over 4,000, with Reform UK finishing a somewhat distant second — to Muslim voters, who make up around 30% of the constituency’s electorate according to the 2021 Census. The Greens won 40.6% of the vote, a 27.4 point increase on their share at the 2024 general election. Labour, meanwhile, was knocked down to third place, having not lost an election in the area since 1931.

On the campaign trail, the Green’s tactics were plain to see. Some of the Party’s campaign material was disseminated in Urdu, with one clip including its now-victorious candidate, Hannah Spencer, introducing herself in the language. While the policy of rent caps was mentioned in the context of the cost-of-living crisis, the video also emphasised the Green Party’s pro-Palestine position, as well as associating Reform UK with Islamophobic rhetoric. Leaning into matters of foreign policy, one image showed UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer with Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, who has been accused of discriminating against his country’s Muslim minorities. Another included Deputy PM David Lammy with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.

Since yesterday evening, senior figures within Reform UK have made allegations of “family voting”, where more than one person goes into a ballot box at a time. Matt Goodwin, the party’s by-election candidate, posted a few hours before the result came through that he was “deeply concerned about the extent to which the Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election is a free, fair, and democratic election”.

International election observers group Democracy Volunteers has reported incidents of illegal family voting at 15 of the 22 polling stations, with the local council responding by saying that no such concerns were reported to polling officials. Referring to his experiences in Gorton and Denton, Sky journalist Sam Coates raised concerns over patriarchal social structures in the “South Asian community”. While the margin of the result suggests that these reported incidents are unlikely to have played an integral part in the Green victory, questions will continue over the integrity of democratic processes in predominantly Muslim areas.

Ultimately, the Gorton and Denton result has reinforced a new political reality in which British Muslim voters constitute a significant electoral force. They will opt for the most favourable political choice, even if — as with the Greens — that party’s cultural liberalism is fundamentally at odds with Islamic social conservatism. The outcome will be especially worrying for Labour, with forthcoming local elections likely to result in a spectacular surge in localised British Muslim tribal mobilisation in North West England at the expense of Starmer’s party.

While the war in Gaza was the straw that broke the camel’s back, a growing number of British Muslims have become disillusioned with a lack of economic opportunities, shortage of decent affordable housing, and underperforming public services in their traditionally Labour-controlled areas. Meanwhile, the Green victory in Gorton and Denton, following Plaid Cymru’s win in the Caerphilly by-election for the Senedd last autumn, will prove troubling for Reform UK, given the threat of Left-wing tactical voting.

This by-election has underscored the fact that UK politics is entering uncharted territory, with anti-establishment British Muslims demonstrating their influence in parts of the country where they are a sizeable population in their own right. As new electoral poles emerge, the political establishment shows no signs of being prepared.

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Dr Rakib Ehsan is a researcher specialising in British ethnic minority socio-political attitudes, with a particular focus on the effects of social integration and intergroup relations.

 

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